I probably would have just taken the single.
After watching the disaster that was the Denver Broncos game nearly two weeks ago now, I put together a little watchlist of quarterbacks the Green Bay Packers could look at to shore up the depth chart behind Jordan Love, and of course, the player the Packers acquired was not even included on the list.
This isn’t because I didn’t know Malik Willis’ roster spot in Tennessee was tenuous, but because I didn’t think he was good enough to merit discussion within the parameters I expected Green Bay to operate in. I viewed the backup quarterback spot as one where immediate competency would be valued more highly than a talent swing. The Packers are a contender by whatever specific definition you choose. If Jordan Love is lost for the season, or an extended period of time, the season is probably over for all intents and purposes, but if he only misses a game or two, the Packers' aspirations don’t need to change. They would need some competent play to try and sneak out of that time with a win or two, though. Instead of going with a more proven option, the Packers took a big swing on tools with Malik Willis instead.
Our own Dusty Evely did a great breakdown on Willis’ tape , and you can absolutely see the pluses with Willis as a passer. His arm POPS. On the 20-80 baseball scouting scale (where 20 is terrible and 80 is ‘the best I have ever seen’), Willis' arm falls somewhere between a 60 and 70. It is legit. Look at this throw for goodness sake.
Jeezy Petes. pic.twitter.com/YBRKDZaJTT
— Dusty (@DustyEvely) August 27, 2024
In addition to the plus arm, Willis is also a great athlete. Willis is not big, but he is built more like a running back at 6’ 1/2’’ and 220 pounds. He did not run at the combine, but he allegedly ran a sub-4.4 10-yard dash back when he was at Auburn, though this was hand-timed and exists in the realm of spring pro days, which are notorious for not being the most accurate. Whether he runs a 4.37 or a 4.51, Willis is noticeably fast, there’s no argument to be had there. In the clip below, which shows every rep of him against the Saints this pre-season, you can see Willis get outside and really look no different than most NFL runningbacks. He is absolutely a threat with his legs.
Every Malik Willis throw and run vs the Saints
− 3/4 for 51 yards 2TD/0INT
− 3 rushes for 29 yards
− Game winning TD pass pic.twitter.com/FAONdP7Kpa
— awthentik (@awthentik) August 26, 2024
Despite all this talent, though, Willis has struggled with the finer points of quarterbacking, both in college and in the pros. Willis got nearly all of his NFL snaps in 2022, and the results were not pretty. He posted a -0.54 EPA-per-dropback and a CPOE of -7.3%. His time-to-throw was over 3.3 seconds, which was longer than any other quarterback in the entire NFL that season, regardless of the number of dropbacks. The only quarterbacks north of 3 seconds were Deshaun Watson, Sam Darnold, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, and Teddy Bridgewater. Of quarterbacks with at least 50 dropbacks that season, only Skylar Thompson had a higher quarterback pressure rate.
While he is a great athlete, Willis has a lot of Justin Fields to his game. Both Fields and Willis take a long time to get rid of the ball, as shown above, and both of them, despite being great athletes, have quite high pressure-to-sack rates. In 2022, both had P2S% north of 26%, ranking in the bottom 10 of players with at least 60 dropbacks. This is not a new issue for Willis either. Despite playing at Liberty, against generally poor competition, only two players in all of college football with at least 340 dropbacks had a worse P2S% than he did at a whopping 31.8% his last year at Liberty. In that final year, he also had the longest time-to-throw in all of college football. His inability to play on time and on script has been a long-running problem and a likely factor in why he lost out to true freshman Bo Nix at Auburn after Jarett Stidham left.
In addition to the pressure problems, the accuracy issues are not new either. Willis had the 16th worst adjusted completion percentage in college football his last year at Liberty, and of players ranked in the bottom 20, only eleven had a lower aDOT, so it’s not like Willis was pushing the ball down the field at a disproportionate rate compared to his low adj% peers, even if he did have a high aDOT overall, ranking 13th in college football at 10.9 yards.
Tom Clements will have his work cut out for him to get Willis to play on time and read out defenses at an accelerated speed, and given how cheap my preferred target in Taylor Heinicke was (traded to the Chargers for a conditional sixth-round pick), I can’t say I’m pleased with the direction Green Bay decided to go with this. Thankfully, the Packers gave up basically nothing here in terms of capital, but I’m afraid Willis just isn’t close to being an NFL quarterback, and if Love gets hurt, we’re still looking at two non-NFL options to replace him. It's not the spot I want to be in to try and get through a week or two when battling for playoff seeding.
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